On Saint Silouan the Athonite (St. Nikolai Velimirovich)

Love Is Higher Than Knowledge

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

When someone visits the Holy Mountain and sees the humble monks, they could think this is a lazy life without purpose. It seems so, when one sees things from the outside. This is because few people can understand the fearsome and uninterrupted war undertaken within the souls of the monks.

This war is almost supernatural, invisible and (conducted) not only against the demonic powers of the rulers of darkness, but for beginners it is also against the flesh, that is, against lusts and passions.

Elder Silouan was my teacher. Once I asked him: "Father Silouan, perhaps these many people bring disturbance to your mind and your prayer? Would it not be better for you to go to a hermitage in Karoulia and live there in peace, like Fr. Artemios, Fr. Dositheos and Fr. Kallinikos? Or you can live in a remote cave like Fr. Gorgonios?" Fr. Silouan responded to me: "I live in a cave. My body is a cave for my soul and my soul is a cave for the Holy Spirit. And I love the people of God and minister to them, without coming out of my cave."

Despite his willingness to minister to everyone and his admirable modesty and willingness of affection, he spoke about God with extraordinary excitement and the boldness of someone speaking about a friend: "I know God. He is affectionate, good and quick to help." When the Elder said this, a certain monk, Fr. Theophanes, listened with fear and thought Fr. Silouan had lost the fear of God. But later, when he read the writings of Fr. Silouan, he changed his mind and said: "Fr. Silouan went towards and reached the measure of the Fathers of the Church."

I think the texts of Father Silouan should take their place among the books of psychology. If for no other reason, at least to confirm that (their author) was a spiritual warrior of the 20th century and to validate what the glorious Fathers of the Church taught and wrote.

There is something new among the teachings of Fr. Silouan: "Keep your mind in Hades and despair not." These words express a motivation and reminder against melancholy and sloth. I personally never heard such words.

Important is the other expression: "Love is higher than knowledge (epistemology)." This is the daily and fundamental teaching of St. Silouan.

With his love, which was tied together with his tears in prayer, he forgave the sins of sinners, upheld the weak, corrected those who did evil works, healed the sick, and pacified the winds. In the monastery he did backbreaking work. He had the warehouse with the heavy objects.

Once I told him that the Russian monks were in great turmoil, because of the tyranny of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Church of God. He then replied: "I also in the beginning had turmoil over this issue. However, after much prayer the following thoughts came to me: the Lord loves all inexpressibly. He knows everyone's plans and the time of each. The Lord allowed the persecution of the Russian people for some future good. I cannot understand it nor stop it. I am left only with prayer and love. I say these things to the brothers who have turmoil: You can only help Russia with prayer and love. Anger and cries against the atheists will not correct things."

Source: Protaton, October - December 2007. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Heretic Theologians and the Good News of Christ

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

The Lord said: "Repent and believe in the Gospel." True repentance is not only to grieve over the sins one has committed, but it is a complete return of the soul from darkness to light, from the worldly to the heavenly, from me to God.

What does faith in the Gospel mean? It means to believe the Good News that the Heavenly Messenger (Angel), the Son of God and God, brought to the human race. In other words, it is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His revelation. The Revelation of Christ is the greatest revelation since the creation of the world. It is the only revelation that can change the man-worm into man-god and a son of God.

Only "the One who descended from Heaven, the Son of Man who is in Heaven" (John 3:13) could bear witness to the world what exists in Heaven, who God is, what the spiritual reality is in the other world, how the spiritual world is that encompasses God, and what happens to human souls after bodily death. "What we saw we preach and what we heard we confess (John 3:11)."

We could say His witness is on a spiritual level, completely empirical. He does not bear witness according to worldly logic, or according to the conclusions of human understanding, or according to the wisdom or philosophies of the earthly man, but according to Him who has seen and heard. He is the Heavenly Messenger of the heavenly reality. "And to this end am I come to this world, that I should bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37), which no one of those born on earth could bear witness to accurately. He Himself calls this witness Good News.

The Heavenly Messenger of the Good News bears witness that: God is one, in the triune harmony of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; that God is not only the Creator but also Father, namely the most beloved and closest relative of all who wish to become His children; that God as Father is true Love, and out of love for the human race He sent His only-begotten Son to save the world. He bears witness: that the soul of man has greater value than the whole material world and that there are legions of innumerable Angels in that world who - sometimes invisibly and at other times visibly, ceaselessly nonetheless - work for people in the events of this world; that after their death, the righteous of this world shine like the sun in the other world; and that the Son of God came down to the world with the purpose of making wormish men the sons of God, to make them gods, according to the will and mercy of the Father. He bears witness to the just judgment of God, the Resurrection of the dead and eternal life, and to many more things - one more joyous than the other.

Christ called men to believe this Good News: repent and believe in the Gospel. This means that He called us to believe Him and in Him, in His every word. Since for humans there is no other way to come to the knowledge of the truth about the most important questions of life and existence, other than accepting to believe His words, seeing as He is an eyewitness to the heavenly and spiritual truths. Either they will believe in Christ or they will continue to walk in the dark and stormy seas of life, guessing and hypothesizing about the earth and the edge of the ocean. A third solution does not exist in the history of the human anthill to this day.

From this it becomes obvious that the Christian faith does not in the least resemble the other faiths and theories of the world, since the other faiths are man made, from the earth and of the earth, by people who spoke about the spiritual world, either according to their natural reasoning or through the deceit of evil spirits. None of the founders of other religions said about himself that he had descended from heaven, or that he had been sent by the Father, or that he bears witness to that concerning heaven which he saw and heard and that he will return to heaven. For this reason, there can be no talk about the equality of or similarity between the witness of Christ and that of the other religions and confessions of the rest of the world.

Do not ask a Christian if he believes in God but ask if he believes in the Gospel, in the Good News of Christ. For if he says he believes in God according to his own logic but not in the Gospel, then he is regressing and is a pagan, since he arrived at faith just as people who lived some two thousand years ago (e.g. some of the philosophers of Greece and Asia). Then for what reason did Christ descend from Heaven? For what reason did He seal with His blood His revelation to the world, the Good News? Such a Christian has in truth the All-Holy Blood of the Son of God on his head like those who cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!"

The Orthodox Church - the only Church of Christ in the world - has kept the faith in the Gospel, without looking right or left, without being supported by other faiths, or by pagan philosophies or by the natural sciences. For if one follows a far-sighted and keen eyed leader, it is useless and laughable to ask the crooked and blind for directions.

While Christ says: "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), the heretic world in thousands of ways expresses the following saying: "Without Christ we can do everything". The entire contemporary culture is turned against Christ. All the modern sciences compete in seeing who will succeed in serving the hardest blow to Christ's teaching. It is a revolution of the vulgar servants against the mistress of the house, a revolution of worldly science against the heavenly science of Christ. However, this whole revolution in our days boils down to what has been written with such clarity: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Rom 1:22).

Truthfully, no one knows where the greatest insanity of the modern world that has fallen away from Christ lies: in each person's private life or in marriage? In school or in politics? In the economic structure or legislation? In war or in peace? Everywhere one sees what we call vulgar and barbaric. Falsehood and violence triumph.

Just as the faithless Jews once trampled upon the commandments of God, one after the other, and marched according to the wishes of the world and their hearts, they now have done the same with the teaching of Christ, the Master of all teachings. They have undermined and abolished one dogma after the other. They have gotten rid of all the Gospel commandments. They have rejected the apostolic and patristic decrees. They have ridiculed all the sayings of the saints, and the ascetic examples they have reduced to myths.

The strongest blow the heretic theologians have imparted to the Gospel is in their questioning the divinity of the Messiah of the world, some doubting it and others totally rejecting it. This was followed by a whole string of denials of spiritual truths such as: the existence of Angels and Demons, of Paradise and Hell, of the eternal glory of the Saints and the Just, fasting, the power of the Cross, the value of the prayer, etc.

Simply put, the heretic theologians have concerned themselves with adaptations and homogenizations (of different faiths), even since the schism of the West from the East, with greater emphasis in the last 150 years. They conformed the heavens to earth, Christ to other "founders of religions" and the Good News to other religions: the Jewish, Muslim and pagan. Everything allegedly in the name of "tolerance" and "for the benefit of peace" between people and nations. However, this is where the beginning of wars and revolutions lie, such as have never been heard of before. For the Truth can in no way tolerate joining with half-truths and lies.

The theosophical view that the truth is scattered among all the religions, philosophies and mysteries got the best of the heretic theologians of the Western world. Thus, they say that there must be some truth in Christianity, as well as in Islam, and Hinduism or Brahmanism, in Plato and Aristotle, in Zed-Avesta, in Tantra and Mantras of Tibet. If it were so, then the ark of humanity would keep on sailing without hope in the dark seas of life, without compass or captain.

Then, why did Christ say this strange saying: "I am the Truth" (John 14:6). He did not say "I am a part of the truth", but "the truth". Also, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). So, He is the whole truth and the whole light. Moreover, according to His word, He is the only guide to the path to eternal life and the only One who knows God. He said to the Jews: "And you have not come to know Him, but I know Him and if I say that I do not know Him I will be a liar like you." (John 8:55). Is it possible Christ was deceived? Or perhaps He deceived us?

May God forgive us for putting forth such questions. We do not pose them ourselves, but the heretics posed them from very early on. And they are constantly answering them, one so and so and another differently - the one like the Jews, that Christ was a deceiver, and the other like the theosophists, that He was deceived. For us such a case does not exist.

The Orthodox believe and confess that Jesus Christ is the one and only Messiah, Savior of the World, the One who has redeemed the human race from sin and restored it, the Son of God who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, God of God, the fulfillment of truth, the source of life, the victor over death, the cause of resurrection, the only true path toward the proper goal, the judge of the living and the dead.

There is something which remains unexplained till now and forms the basic difference between our Eastern Church and the heretical churches of the West. However, before we proceed to its explanation, we must settle the fact that the new period for the heretics of the West did not start with the Reformation or with the French Revolution, but from the 11th century when the Christian West fell away from the Christian East. From that point on, Western Christianity started with the adaptations and the homogenizations. This constitutes the essence of this new period for them, of the contemporary age of modernism about which they even brag. For the Eastern Church, from the time of Christ's appearance in the world, there is no old and new age but everything is exactly the same and real, independent of periods, situations and subjugations.

Dogmatics is an applied science. This is something that the heretic theologians either don't realize or neglected. From the beginning dogmatics was an applied science - something that the Apostles were aware of, as well as the saints and the ascetics of the Eastern Church and for this reason they struggled to personally fulfill every dogma in their life.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity, for example concerning the one Triune God, seemed to many lay people and even to heretic theologians as the most abstract of all dogmas. However, in the Menaion of the Orthodox Church, it mentions many saints who through asceticism made themselves "the abode of the Holy Trinity." They illumined their mind, their heart and their will, these three, like connected receptacles which they filled with the Holy Spirit according to the Lord's parable of the leaven bread (Luke 13:21).

The Apostle Paul expressed it beautifully by saying: "What? Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God and you are not your own?" (1Cor 6:19) Of course wherever God the Holy Spirit is, there God the Father and God the Son are: the Holy Trinity, indivisible, inseparable and life giving. This is why in some stichera of the Saints we sing, "You became the abode of the Holy Trinity."

All the mysteries of the Orthodox Church, but also of many of the Services, begin with the prayer to the Holy Spirit, "Heavenly King, the Spirit of Truth... come and dwell in us." We pray, therefore, for the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in us. This does not happen immediately but after much asceticism with prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and toil. And then after all these things, with frequent weeping and sighing, the heart is cleansed and the Holy Spirit dwells in it (the heart) to enlighten the heart and the mind and the will. Then the Most High God dwells in man and works everything through him.

Mind, heart and will comprise the triune man. In the sinful and passionate soul, these three do not exist in union and divine harmony but are divided and ill-sorted. In such a case man looks like a house that is split, cannot stand and falls. Such a dwelling of the soul cannot then be saved, except through repentance and faith in the Gospel.

From Inspired Articles of Orthodox Spirituality.

The True Slave and Freedom in Christ

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"For the slave called in the Lord is a freed person in the Lord, just as the free person who has been called is a slave of Christ" (I Corinthians 7:22).

The great news that Christianity daily announces to the world is that nothing is evaluated at full value according to its external appearance but by its essence. Do not evaluate things according to its color and shape but by its meaning. Do not evaluate a man by his position and property but by his heart - by his heart in which are united his feeling, his reason and his will.

According to this, for the world always a new teaching, he is not a slave who is outwardly enslaved; neither is he free who possesses outward physical freedom.

According to secular understanding, the slave is one who enjoys the world the least and a free man is one who enjoys the world the most. According to Christian understanding, a slave is one who least enjoys from the living and sweet Christ and the free man is one who enjoys most from the living and sweet Christ.

Further, according to secular understanding, the slave is one who carries out his own will less frequently and who carries out the will of others more frequently, and a free man is one who carries out his will more often and even less often the will of others. However, according to Christian understanding, the slave is one who carries out his will more often and even less often the will of God, and the free man is one who carries out the will of God more frequently and who carries out even less frequently, his own will.

To be a slave to the Lord is the only true and worthy freedom of man and, to be a slave to the world and to one's self, sin and vice is the only fatal slavery.

Of the kings on the throne, a man would think: Are there any more free men on earth than those? However, many kings were the most base and the most unworthy slaves of the earth.

Of shackled Christians in the dungeons, a man would think: Are there any more miserable slaves on earth than they? However, the Christian martyrs in the prisons felt as free men and were filled with spiritual joy; they chanted Psalms and raised up prayers of gratitude to God.

Freedom which is tied to grief and sorrow is not freedom but slavery. Only freedom in Christ is tied with unspeakable joy. Lasting joy is the mark of true freedom.

O Lord Jesus, the only Good Lord, Who grants us freedom when You tie us stronger to Yourself, make us Your slaves as soon as possible that we would cease to be slaves of cruel and unmerciful masters. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

Contentment Comes From Within

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that" (I Timothy 6:8).

The apostles of God taught others that which they themselves fulfilled in their own lives. When they had food and clothing they were content. Even when it occurred that they had neither food nor clothing they were content. For their contentment did not emanate from the outside but emanated from within. Their contentment was not so cheap as the contentment of an animal, but costly, more costly and more rare. Internal contentment, the contentment of peace and love of God in the heart, that is the contentment of greater men, that was the apostolic contentment.

In great battles, generals are dressed and fed as ordinary soldiers and they do not seek contentment in food nor in clothes but in victory. Victory is the primary principle of contentment of those who battle. Brethren, Christians are constantly in battle, in battle for the victory of the spirit over the material, in battle for conquest of the higher over the lower, man over beast. Is it not, therefore, absurd to engage in battle and not to worry about victory but to concern oneself with external decorations and ornaments? Is it not foolish to give to one's enemies the marks of identification? Our invisible enemy [Satan] rejoices at our vanity and supports us in every vain thought. The invisible enemy occupies us with every possible unreasonable pettiness and idleness only to impose upon our minds the heavy forgetfulness relative to that for which we are here on earth. The invisible enemy [Satan] presents to us the worthless as important, the irrelevant as essential and that which is detrimental as beneficial only in order to achieve victory and to destroy us forever.

O Lord, Holy, Mighty and Immortal, Who created us from the mud and breathed a living soul into mud, do not allow, O Lord, that the mud overwhelms! Help our spirit that it always be stronger than the earth.

Discernment in Mature and Immature Christians

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Everyone who lives on milk lacks experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties are trained by practice to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:13-14).

Those who feed on the food of the milk of sensual reflection cannot easily distinguish between good and evil. They usually come to the conclusion that all Faiths are equally the same in value; that sin is the indispensable shadow of virtue; that evil, in general, is the unavoidable companion of good. A true Christian cannot come to such erroneous conclusions.

A true Christian is a mature person who is not fed of milk, one who is distrustful of the senses, one who judges much finer and makes a finer distinction between the values of all that is and all that was. To the Christian, indeed, is given clear distinction of God's Revelation for distinguishing good from evil; nevertheless, for him [the Christian] a long and laborious study is necessary in order that he, as being perfect, could in every given case know what is good and what is evil. This knowledge should pass over into feeling in order to be trustworthy and without error. Both good and evil wish to touch the heart of man. That is why man should be trained, with his feeling in the heart, to immediately recognize what approaches him in the same manner, as with his tongue he immediately senses the salty and the unsalty, the sweet and the bitter.

Brethren, let us endeavor every day and every moment to sharpen our heart that the heart could always distinguish good and evil. For everything that happens to us, the question is posed: What is good and what is evil? Precisely everything that happens to us, happens to us so that we could realize what is good and to follow after good. We place ourselves in such temptations even a hundred times a day. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

O Lord, Lover of mankind, warm our hearts with good which is from You. Make us wise, O Lord, to be able to distinguish good from evil. O Master, strengthen us that we should always embrace good and discard evil for the sake of Your glory, O Lover of mankind, and for the sake of our salvation.

We Should Depart From Evil and Do Good

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Turn from evil, and do good" (Psalm 34:15)

With these words are expressed all our effort by which we should labor here on earth and in the earth, i.e., on this material earth and in this physical body.

Therefore, of what then should our labor consist? To achieve two habits: First, to avoid evil, and second, to do good. Concerning that which is good and that which is evil, our conscience tells us incompletely and unclearly because our conscience is darkened by sin; but the teaching of Christ tells us completely and clearly that which is good and that which is evil.

Brethren, what does our Lord ask of us? He asks, that as our altars are always facing the east, so should our souls also be turned toward good. To leave evil behind us; to leave evil in the shadow; to leave evil in the abyss of oblivion; to leave evil in the darkness of the past, that we, from year to year, from day to day, extend ourselves toward good: to think about good; to yearn for good; to speak about good; to do good. The Lord is seeking builders and not destroyers. For whoever builds good, with that alone, he destroys evil. However, he who turns away from destroying evil, quickly forgets how to build good and is transformed into an evildoer.

The apostle of Christ teaches us, "Hate what is evil, hold on to what is good" (Romans 12:9). Hate evil but do not hate the man who commits evil for he is sick. If you can, heal the sick person but do not kill him with your hatred. Adhere to good and only good; for good is from God; for God is the treasury of all good.

O Good and All-good Lord, teach us to avoid evil and to do good for the sake of Your glory and for the sake of our salvation.

The Darkened Mind and Hardened Heart

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"The gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart" (Ephesians 4:17-18).

What is vanity, my brethren? All that is seen outside God, cut off from God and done without the fear of God.

What is vanity of the mind, my brethren? To live and interpret life, not by God's law but rather by one's own passing thoughts and desires.

Whence, my brethren, does this evil come to men? From hardness of heart and from inner ignorance.

What does hardness of heart mean, brethren? It means a heart empty of love for God and fear of God, and filled with lustfulness and fear of everything for the body's sake.

Brethren, what is born of hardness of heart? Ignorance - complete ignorance of divine things, divine ways and divine laws; a heart completely dulled to spiritual life and spiritual thought.

What is the final consequence, brethren, of hardness of heart and ignorance of divine truth? A darkened understanding and alienation from the Living God.

Darkened understanding occurs when the mind of man becomes as darkened as the body, and the light that is in man becomes darkness. Oh, such a darkness! A darkened understanding is a darkened mind. A darkened mind knows the meaning of nothing, or denies the meaning of everything. In such a condition, a man is alienated from the life of God, and he withers and dies like a body part cut off from the body. Such are the pagans, such are the godless, and such are those of little faith or false Christians. But even dry wood, when it is watered with the life-creating water of Christ, comes to life and bursts forth in greenery. Even the dried-up pagan world was raised up and brought to life by Christ the Lord. How much more so would it be for repentant Christian sinners!

Let us look at ourselves, my brethren. Let us do so every day. Let us ask ourselves every day whether we have become darkened and alienated from the life of God because of our vanity. Soon there will be death, the end and judgment. The dry wood will be cast into the unquenchable fire.

O Lord Jesus, our Mind and our Life, help us to think with Thee, and to live with Thee. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.

The Beauty of the Lord, the Theotokos and the Church

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Thou art fairer than the sons of men" (Psalm 45:2).

Holy Scripture does not ascribe any particular value to physical beauty, and in general to anything transient. That is why everyone who reads Holy Scripture should take care to be sufficiently attentive and wise to transfer the praise of physical beauty to the soul and to spiritual values. Without a doubt, spiritual beauty gives a wondrous attractiveness to the most unattractive body, just as an ugly soul makes even the most attractive body repulsive.

The Prophet David, pouring forth good words (Psalm 45:1), says to his King, the Lord Jesus Christ: "Thou art fairer than the sons of men." The Lord Himself created His bodily cloak as He wanted. Had He wanted to appear in the world as the physically fairest of men, He could have done so. But there is nothing in the Gospel to indicate that He drew followers to Himself or influenced men by His appearance. He Himself said: "the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63). Therefore, it is clear that David was not speaking of the physical beauty of Christ, but of His spiritual, divine beauty. This is clearly seen in the following words of the Psalmist: "Grace is poured forth upon thy lips" (Psalm 45:2). So it is that the unsurpassed beauty of the Son of God is not in the form and shape of His lips, but rather in the stream of grace that flows from His mouth. Again, the Prophet Isaiah speaks of Christ: "He had no form or comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2-3).

Do Isaiah and David agree? Perfectly well. David speaks of Christ's inward beauty, and Isaiah speaks of Christ's external abasement. Isaiah said that He would not be seen as a king or a rich man, but as a servant and sufferer.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art fairer to us than all men and angels: glory to Thine immortal and unending beauty. O gracious Lord, correct the ugliness of our souls, which are disfigured by sin, we pray Thee. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.

"The king's daughter is all glorious within" (Psalm 45:13).

The Church of God is the daughter of the King. However poor and unattractive to the physical eye it may seem on the outside, no matter how persecuted and humiliated, it is filled with royal radiance and beauty from within. The King, He Who is "fairer than the sons of men" (Psalm 45:2), imparts beauty to His royal daughter. The Church of God is like a vesture for Christ; Christ lives in her. No outer beauty can be compared with inner beauty, that is, the beauty of Christ.

The Most-holy Theotokos is the daughter of the King: "Her vesture is woven with gold" (Psalm 45:13). This vesture is the virtue of her soul. That we understand "vesture" as virtue is clear in the parable of the marriage of the king's son. The man who was not clothed in a wedding garment was driven from the king's table and punished (cf. Matthew 22:11-13). True faith in God was the golden vesture of the Most-holy Virgin. Virginity, meekness, compassion, sanctity, piety, devotion to God's will, and all other virtues, were like embroideries on this golden garment. However, her beauty was the work of the Lord Christ, hidden within her and born of her.

The soul of every faithful Christian is like the daughter of the King. All the beauty of that soul is in Christ and of Christ, Who is within the soul. A soul without Christ the Sun of Righteousness is in darkness, without form and comeliness, as the universe would be without form and comeliness without the material sun.

O great and gracious Lord, our true God and our man-loving Provider, help us to clothe ourselves in the garment of the virtues, that we may not be found naked at Thy Dread Judgment. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.

The Repetitious Character of Orthodoxy

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

In no other Churches are there so many repetitions, in no other so many symbols, as in the Orthodox Church. The whole worship is a continual repetition for thousands of years. In Byzantium was fixed the image of Christ, His mission, His worship. The whole system of belief and worship came, fixed and accomplished, over to us Slavs. To keep that system intact forever was the first duty taught us by those who brought it. Its tendency was to impress the image of Christ in the imagination and heart of the generations as much as possible and always in the same way.

We are living in a world of evil; Christ is leader of the struggle against this evil. Men lived thousands of years wavering between good and evil, worshiping good and evil. Now they must be for good. They are educated and accustomed to weighing things for themselves. Therefore it has become necessary to ask them every day, every hour even, to confess that they are with Christ. They must repeat it again and again, in prayers, in signs, in symbols, until it becomes a new custom, a new education, a new blood and spirit, a new man, a new earth. They must be reminded in every place and at all times that they are soldiers of Christ and not of Perun. Churches, shrines, chapels, icons, candles, processions, priests, bells, monasteries, travelling preachers, every day's saints, fast seasons — everything is the repetition of the same idea, namely, that Christ is the ruler of life and we are His followers. Christ must be expressed everywhere, indoors and outdoors.

Many Englishmen have remarked that the Bible is read very seldom in the home in Russia and Serbia. That is true. People read the Bible more in symbols, pictures and signs, in music and prayers, than in the Book. Our religion is not a book religion, not even a learned religion. It is a dramatic mystery. The Bible contains the words, but in this dramatic mystery there is something higher and deeper than words. Slav Christianity is something greater than the Bible. Looking at an icon, a Russian mujik perceives the Bible incarnated in a saint's life-drama. Mystery of sin, mystery of atonement, mystery of heroic suffering, mystery of the daily presence of Christ among us in holy wine, in holy bread, in holy water, in holy word, in holy deed, in every sanctified substance, even in matter as in spirit, mystery of communion of sins and of virtues — all are recorded once in the Bible, and all are recorded and repeated also in our daily life — that is what we call our Slav Orthodoxy. We take the mystic outlines of the Bible and do not care about the details. In those mystic outlines we put our daily life, with its details of sins and sufferings. We conceive the Christian religion neither so juristic as the Roman Catholics, nor so scientific as the Protestants, nor even so reasonable and practical as the Anglicans, but we conceive it rather as dramatic.

From The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916)

St. Macrina: An Icon of Female Modesty and Humility

St. Macrina the Rightous (Feast Day - June 19)

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Macrina was the eldest sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa. As a young virgin, Macrina was betrothed to a nobleman. When her betrothed died, Macrina vowed never to enter into marriage saying: "It is not right for a maiden once betrothed to a young man to seek another: according to the law of nature there must be only one marriage as there is but one birth and one death." She further justified this by her faith in the resurrection considering her bridegroom, not dead but alive in God. "It is a sin and a shame," says Macrina, "for a wife not to safeguard her faithfulness when her husband travels to a distant land." After this, together with her mother, Emilia, she received the monastic tonsure in a convent, where they lived a life of asceticism with other nuns. They lived from the labors of their hands devoting a greater part of their time to godly thoughts, prayer and the constant uplifting of their minds to God. In time her mother died and, afterward her brother Basil. Nine months after the death of St. Basil, Gregory came to visit with his sister and found her on her death bed. Before her death, Macrina lifted up her prayers to God: "You, O Lord, Who gives rest to our bodies in the sleep of death for a time, will again awaken them [the bodies] at the last trump. Forgive me and when my soul divests itself of its bodily attire and presents itself before You, pure and without sin, grant that it may be as incense before You." After that she traced the sign of the cross on the forehead, eyes, face and on her heart and gave up her soul. She found rest in the Lord in the year 379 A.D.

One of the most beautiful adornments of a woman is her modesty and immodesty in a woman is the most unnatural and most repulsive spectacle in the world. A wonderful example of feminine modesty was shown by St. Macrina in her life. In her youth, a bitter wound opened up on her breast; even though her mother counseled her to show the wound to a doctor and seek a remedy, Macrina did not agree to it. She had completely dedicated herself to God and would not allow even the thought of exposing her body before men and not even before her own mother. One evening Macrina earnestly prayed to God; from her eyes tears flowed, which fell to the dust before her. With unwavering confidence in her Lord, with her fingers she mixed the dust with her tears and with that anointed her wound. The next day she awakened healthy. When her mother, with great sorrow entered to see her daughter, Macrina did not want to reveal that the Lord healed her (out of humility, concealing the miracle which she herself performed through her prayer) but begged her mother saying: "I will be healed, my mother, if you place your right hand on my bosom and make the sign of the cross over the spot of the wound." The mother reached out her hand and made the sign of the cross over that spot but did not feel the wound anymore but only the scar of the healed wound. Thus did St. Macrina conceal her body out of modesty and her miracle-working out of humility.

"As virginity is better than marriage, so the first marriage is better than the second." Thus, St. John Chrysostom wrote to the young widow of Tarasius, a deceased nobleman of Constantinople, counseling her not to enter into marriage for the second time. The Church blesses first marriages with joy but the second marriage with sorrow. Eupraxia the elder, the mother of St. Eupraxia and relative of Emperor Theodosius the Great, remained a young widow following the death of her husband Antigonus, with whom she lived in physical contact for only two years and three months, and further lived one more year as brother and sister by mutual pledge. The emperor and empress counseled her to enter into marriage with another nobleman. She would not hear of it, but took her child Eupraxia and together they fled to Egypt. What can we say about St. Olympias and St. Eupraxia the younger? As with St. Macrina, not only was she also betrothed as a virgin but when her betrothed died, she considered herself a widow and would not even in her thoughts consider entering into marriage. What purity of heart! What fidelity to one's betrothed! What fear of God! What obvious faith in the future life in which the betrothed maiden hopes to see her betrothed.

Apolytikion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone

In thee the image was preserved with exactness, O Mother; for taking up thy cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to overlook the flesh, for it passeth away, but to attend to the soul since it is immortal. Wherefore, O righteous Macrina, thy spirit rejoiceth with the Angels.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone

Since the light of righteousness shone brightly in thee, thou wast an example of the life of piety for all, teaching the virtues to them that cry: Rejoice, Macrina, thou boast of virginity.